Abstract Thinking
As a consequence there are organisms that include as a subset of possible interactions, interactions with their own internal states (as states resulting from external and internal interactions) as if these were independent entities, generating the apparent paradox of including in their cognitive domain their cognitive domain. In us, this paradox is resolved by what we call abstract thinking (a new cognitive domain). (NC 8)
The process of thinking as characterized above is necessarily inependant of language. That this is so even for what we call "abstract thinking in man is apparent from the observations of humans with split brains. These observations show that the inability of the non-speaking hemisphere to speak does not preclude in it operations that the observer would call abstract thinking, and that the lack of language only implies that it cannot generate discourse. (BC 44)
This page was last updated on June 26, 1996, by Rob Sable.